Destiny: Book of Light (13 page)

The day passed mostly with discussions of plans based around the best way to approach things. The entire army gathered on the beach had become know as the "Last Stand Army," since most were not actually soldiers, but rangers, or hunters. They had been divided into different regiments making the best of everyone's skills. Only the Rionions were not separated. They had received much abuse upon stepping foot on the beach which had been expected, but Sean managed it well, emphasising calm and restraint to the Rionions and putting to ground anyone that stepped over the line of verbal abuse. Although each of the regiments were comprised of enough variety of skills to travel alone, there was no telling what they may encounter. So it was decided the whole army would move as one, with the centre of them being the Rionions. They would be lead by Sean, the ever persistent Shionlee and the stubborn captain. Both had been requested to stick with their people but neither would agree to it. Vulita was placed in a regiment at the back of the lines, she wasn't present at the meetings and still hadn't talked to Sean.

As discussions brewed through the day Sean wandered through the men. He could sense great fear among them but courage also. He was still amazing himself with his new found powers. He could nearly sense the biology of an individual as he passed by them. He looked at everything in a way that he had never imagined before but what really intrigued him was what he felt in the distance. The great evil past the hills and through the mountains. Nothing else in the world could challenge him as much as this. Nothing besides Sarah, but he didn't just feel the anger he had once felt before anymore. Now there was more. Now it was as if he understood that this was his destiny defined by some greater power. Something greater than anything he could imagine and he felt, not only compelled by the thought of fulfilling his path, but also excited by it.

Through the crowds of readying soldiers he felt something a little off. Something that shouldn't have been there. Something unnatural. He began frantically searching for what it might be, pushing people aside as he rushed in a frenzy through preoccupied men. But the direction he was feeling it from kept changing. Not only in small movements but sometimes in massive ones, as if it disappeared and almost instantly reappeared somewhere else. He was sure it must be some spy from Sultron after eluding any unsuspecting eyes but still he couldn't find it. The feeling grew weaker to the point that it almost felt like a shadow, leaving him confused by it, and in that confused moment he ran into Vulita. She was making food for herself in one of the food huts when he stumbled in there almost seeming to be drunk.

"Are you ok?" she asked. He didn't answer. "Sean?" Again nothing, he just stared into the distance. "What is it?" At last he replied. "I don't know, I just though I felt something." "Felt what?" "I'm not sure, just something that didn't feel in place. Something off.

The call to move out had been made and the army moved up the hills. It was an impressive sight to say the least. The sun was high in the sky, and it’s light glistened off the array of weaponry marching in unison across the rolling mountain side. The sky was clear blue and the air fresh at that altitude. But up ahead was a different story.

The highest peak was shrouded with darkness. Ominous clouds covered the top, with deep fog blocking vision to the lower regions. Scouts were sent ahead in 4 different directions to check in on what may lay ahead. In contrast to the perfect day all around it, this mountain did not seem natural.

The hours dragged on and the march was long. The mood was that of a funeral as if everyone already knew their fate was sealed, but had no other choice than to be there. As the dusk of the day approached from behind them, they reached the begin of the fog at the foot of the final peaks. With many miles yet to go and a vast plateau before the final climb, the decision was made to make camp for the night.

The camp was spread out in formation in case of attack during the night. A distance was kept from the fog and guards were posted on rotation every 100 meters. The size of the army covered the plateau.

Tents had been erected and campfires blazed in the darkness of the night. Sean found himself a quiet spot just at the edge of camp. He sat in the grass quietly marvelling at the tranquility of all around him. He continued to feel the strength of the power growing inside him.

She watched him from within the crowd. Thousands of people around her, thousands of conversations going on, some drinking, some dancing, desperately trying to find distraction to what might be their final night alive. But she could only see him. Sitting in the tall grasses, he seemed to be different to everyone else, although she did not know why.

It wasn’t that she was attracted to him, or that the obvious aura of his new found power made her curious. It was more than that. It was as if she already knew him. As if they were connected in some way, but based on the fact that they only had one conversation, this made no sense to her.

She had to talk to him, but couldn’t think of what she would say, but before she realised it or had figured out what she might say she found herself standing next to him, struggling to make any sound at all.

His eyes were closed and although she made no sound at all approaching him, he smiled.

“I can feel the grass,”

She looked confused for a moment before responding.

“How do you mean?”

His eyes still closed, he continued.

“The grass, I can feel it. And everything else around it. I can hear conversations at the other end of the camp and I can feel the fear soaking in the souls of those asleep and filling the lungs of those awake. Everything is connected, and I now understand it, and because I understand it I can absorb it all. Good and bad, human and non. I can hear the stars and the echoes of the distance of time that travels with them. The ancient earth beneath us hums with millions of years of the smallest of movements, some taking hundreds of years, but the beautiful noise it makes pales in comparison to the billions of years of billions of forms of existence communicating with us from the skies.”

“And there is more too. Like another world between the lines of this world. I can hear the waves of movement from within that world. I can feel it, although I don’t fully understand it yet, I know it is there.”

He stopped speaking for a moment, deciding it would be best not to explain the next part. Again, he tried to focus on the fog that lay less than 100 meters away from him. The fog that silenced everything within it. He could not hear that. He could not understand that, but he was sure that the cold chill of silence coming from it, held nothing but an evil that he wished he could ignore.

She noticed the change in his focus and face.

“Are you ok?” she asked, resting her hand gently on his shoulder.

He didn’t answer, but opened his eyes and turned to face her.

“And you. I now understand so much, but I don’t want to understand you. There is so much light surrounding the life I can see, but the light from you is different.”

“Different how?” She smiled.

He placed his hand on her cheek.

“The light from you is familiar. I feel I know it, as if it were my home. I could look into it, but it’s curiosity is intriguing to me and it’s delicacy is something I wish to keep pure. With the darkness we are about to face, a feeling of home relaxes me”.

She smiled and they both stared warmly into each others eyes. Time seemed still but the stars seemed to move as if time was moving faster and the planets rotation was more noticeable. It was a moment of such that neither of them had ever experienced before and as if every moment after that would never live up to it. But the moment was interrupted by screams in the distance.

“The scouts!” Sean jumped from the moment and began to run the length of the camp, his foot movements softer than they had ever been before, but yet his strides were faster. As he got closer the screams intensified, but by the time he got there they had stopped. A crowd had gathered.

Their eyes were burned into their heads and their bodies had multiple slash wounds in symmetrical patterns across their bodies. The crowds looked on as Sean spoke some words over them, then covered them with blankets. Morning was breaking and the fog looked on ominously.

Suddenly, from deep within the fog an animal like scream echoed across the mountain and a bright orange glow emerged deep within the mist. Then something against all physics was observed. As the Sun began to break, it began to move in reverse. Instead of rising, it began to set. The mountain was plunged into darkness. The smell of burning flesh poured down the mountain.

Sean turned to the fear stricken souls behind him. He stood upright and proud.

“This would be a good time to tell you words of encouragement. To tell you all that we are strong and we move forward to victory, but you know that I don’t know that. What we all know though, is that if we don’t do this, and we are not victorious, there is nothing to go back to. So we go forward, and we will not stop going forward until we have no steps left”.

There was no cheers, no inspirational final march. Sean simply turned and began to walk into the fog. Thousands followed him.

It seemed brighter within the fog than it was outside the fog, but it was a lot more terrifying. The denseness created an absence of everything. Sean could hear the quiet movements of armour behind him, but could barely see his footing in front of him. He could sense nothing.

About an hour passed when a swishing sound was heard from the middle of the army, followed immediately by a scream. Sean stopped for a moment and listened, but heard nothing further. He started walking forward again, and shortly after, heard another scream. This time he ran to where the sound came from, but nobody was there. In fact, nobody was anywhere. The sounds of armour were not to be heard any more and where the army should have been marching, there was just fog.

Had he got turned around? He began to shout and scream but nobody responded. Then another swish sound and another scream. He ran to the source, nothing. No tracks, no blood stains, just nothing. Another swish and a scream, and another, and another. It continued.

Eventually he gave up, figured the best way forward and began walking. The screams haunted his helplessness, but there was only one focus now. The flame seemed to surround him more and more as he moved forward casting a reaching glow through the thickness of the fog.

All of a sudden, the fog began to clear all around him. He found himself standing alone for a moment, on a vast plane, sure that he was the only one still alive. A wall of fog behind him and a wall of fog before him. But soon another figure began to emerge from the fog behind him. Then another and another, until the Last Stand Army stood behind him.

Sionlee came to his side, with a look of bewilderment.

“Have you seen the Captain Sionlee”, he asked.
“Ah yes, I not know see the captain”.

A chilling scream came from the wall of fog before them, again the fiery red glow grow to a towering inferno from within it. The scream soon changed to what seemed like thousands of beastly roars.

Sol spoke to Sean.

“This is it Sean, this is your Destiny. Within that battle ahead of you is Sultron. Whatever you do, you must not let him awaken the Elmeshir. If that happens, it will be the end of all that is known.”

Figures began to emerge in front of them.

“What if I fail Sol?”
“You can not. You must not. There is simply no other option”.

Sean addressed the tired, and beaten army. Completely overwhelmed by whatever had just depleted their ranks in the fog, they at last had a battle to fight.

“This is it lads! This is where we stand!”

He fired the Blue energy from Nembatil, into the horde of beasts and monsters in front of them and began to run towards them, firing more as he did so and with the army charging behind him.

The pivotal moment hit when both sides collide and the clashing of weapons was to be heard up and down the formations. He had a sense of how everyone was doing and what was happening all around him. The Rionions were doing ok, with the various abilities and intensely trained fighting skills that they had, but besides them and a selection of Sionlees people at the North Flank, very few were doing well.

Souls were being over run with all manner of beasts that stood in front of them. Sean had turned into some sort of effective killing machine himself and was getting to know these beasts inside and out. Deep within the gore, he a figure larger than all the rest emerged from the fog. He felt it straight away. It was him. It was Sultron.

Massive in stature and seemingly derived from both flesh and a dark metal of some sort, Sean could see the piercing evil eyes watching his every movement. He scowled, and turned back into the fog.

This was it. This is what everything had lead to. He could not fail. He must not fail. He slashed and cut his way through the beast ranks until he broke through the beasts ranks and he followed Sultron into the Mist, leaving the army behind him.

The fog enveloped him once again, and once again he was alone, with nothing but the sound and stench of death all around him.

Time seemed insignificant to him until in the absence of all thought except the instinct to move forward, he felt a sharp shock up his spine. It was so fast that his brain could not process what had happened, but he found himself on his knees. He found himself absently listening to the sound of waves.

Still in shock at the pain, he noticed a body on the ground in front of him. His eyes glazed over in confusion. It was as if he was sharing this emotion with another version of himself. A shadowed version of the person that he once was, but the emotion had changed him to someone he was not yet familiar with. The sound of waves was getting stronger. It was Vulita. Her head had been torn clean from her body.

He felt the shock again. Much more intense this time and his body recognised the pain so the shock did not have the same numbing effect, it an instant fear came over him as he was involuntarily reduced to curling into a ball. The sound of waves was now so loud, it was if they were right next to him.